Where Were You When Tim Cook Sold Apple's Soul?

Written by: Rocco Pendola05/08/12 - 7:36 AM EDT

Tickers in this article:
AAPL RIMM

NEW YORK ( TheStreet) -- I spent a good chunk of 2011 chiding Research in Motion (RIMM) for its incompetence. During that time, a large number of RIMM bulls became over-the-top angry with me. The harder and faster the stock fell, the more their dislike, bordering on hate in some cases, intensified.

I was never able to figure out why they were mad at me. I did not run their favorite company into the ground. It was not my fault that RIM's stock cratered from the triple digits into the teens. I did not repeatedly botch guidance. I did not go on conference calls to reassure analysts and investors that everything was just fine when it was clear everything was not. I did not stubbornly drag my feet to make management changes and then announce one of the most uninspiring moves in corporate history. Heck, I didn't even fail to bring an NHL franchise to Southern Ontario.

Yet, RIMM permabulls attacked me as if I was responsible. Unbelievably, they defended the company's former co-CEOs James Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis.

I argued that RIMM bulls should have directed all of this anger and energy at the company, not some guy who called the play-by-play of the demise from his posh perch in Southern California. I contended that all Canadians should demand Parliament open an inquiry into how Balsillie and his team handled issues such as guidance. I urged the nation my father was born in -- God's Country, Canada -- to save Potash(POT) from foreign ownership and to request that RIM, the national disgrace, pick up and leave.

If anything, RIMM bulls should have been on my side. They should have invited me to Waterloo for all types of protests, ranging from sit-ins to hunger strikes to petition drives. Instead, they misdirected their anger and got in the way of a falling knife.

AAPL Bulls Have Lost It

I would never do something as dumb as compare Apple(AAPL) to RIM. As companies, there's simply no comparison. Similarities do exist, however, between the conduct of RIMM bulls -- some of which, shockingly, continues to this day -- and the behaviors of AAPL bulls.

Like RIMM longs, considerable factions of AAPL bulls appear to be living in denial. In the process, they're misdirecting their anger, sending scorn and contempt to me and other people who dare to even wax critical or, worse yet, long-term bearish AAPL. Just look at the comment sections of articles I have written on on TheStreet and elsewhere. Folks are taking shots at me on Twitter. It's all very theatrical. It would be funny if it was not so pathetic and misguided.